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What will happen to your business after you retire?
Regardless of whether you are employed by a large operator or you are at the helm of a family firm, it’s one of the most important questions that you can answer. Providing a plan of succession is imperative if matters are to continue uninterrupted when you’re no longer involved.
How you put that in place is something for you to decide. In some vocations and for some operators, the apprenticeship route has delivered the leaders of tomorrow.
Others have seen good results with graduates, while still more have pursued neither of those avenues and instead have been the benefactors of a ‘right time, right place’ stroke of luck. That demonstrates that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
What is clearer is that to entice the best young brains, you may have to move away from the norm. A clear path of progression will likely be expected, and the rigidity of long hours and repetitive work when starting out will not appeal.
Despite that, there is clear evidence that a career in the coach and bus industry is still attractive to many young people. Numerous operators have among their senior management individuals who are below 40, and a growing reliance on technology will continue to grow the sector’s appeal to that age group.
It is necessary only to look at the workforce of a rapidly-expanding tech firm that is extending its reach further into the coach sector almost by the day to see evidence of that.
If you haven’t yet done so, it is worth looking at the younger generation to see what talent is out there. You never know. You may find your own successor while you’re doing it.
